Storage-battery grid.



PATENTED DOT. 29. 907.

R. N. CHAMBERLAIN. STORAGE BATTERY GRID.

INVENTOH WITNESSES PATENTED OCT. 29. 1907 R. N. CHAMBERLAIN.

STORAGE BATTERY GRID.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

RUFUS N. CHAMBERLAIN, Oi" DEPE\\', NEW YORK, ASSIGNOR TO GOULD COMPANY, OF NEW YORK, N. Y

STORAGE BATTERY A CORPORATION 01* NEW YORK.

STORAGE-BATTERY GRID.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, RUFUS N. CHAMBERLAIN, a citizen of the United States, residing at Depcw, county of Erie, State of New York, have invented curtain new and useful Improvements in Storage-l3attery Grids, of

which the following is a specification.

In two co-pending applications, Serial No. 277,421, filed September 7, 1905, and Serial No. 294,7 S3, filed January5, 1906, I have described improvements in the knives,'disks or rollers of tools or machines for making storage battery grids of the Gould type, and of the improved form herein described and claimed.

In the type of battery girds known as the Gould, a

' large number of ribs, ridges or leaves, closely set together and separated by narrow grooves, are spun or rolled up from the body of the grid-blank to provide a greatly extended surface for the action of the electrolyte. For making such'grooves it has been customary to use thin, flat sided steel disks, closely 21536111 bled together upon a shaftthe result of the operation of which is the production of similarly flat sided ribs or leaves upon the grid separated from each other by narrow spaces equal in width only to the thickness of the disks. A form of machine adapted to the making of such grids is shown in the patent of Richards, No. 699814 granted May 13, 1902. Such disks or knives, in order to produce ribs or leaves of the desired fineness and close arrangement are made of thin steel liable to break or crack near the base before it is worn out on its spinning or rolling surface and to bend and defiectfrom the work while in operation, and so produce imperfections in the grids;v furthermore, the weakness of the disks limits the pressure at which the rolls may be operated and consequently the speed at which the grids may be made. These are some of the defects of the old form of machine, so far as the cutting, spinning or rolling knives or disks themselves are concerned. .As to the product made by them I have found that the parallel sided ribs or leaves are weak mechanically owing to their height and thinness, and it is likely also that in the making'of the grid the parallel sides of the knife or disk destroy to a certain extent the molecular structure of the ribs near the base, allowing the electrochemical action to penetrate'morc actively at that point. It may be that the lead at that point assumes more the structure of cast lead than rolled lead. At any rate, the parallel sides of the ribs of the grid seem .to succumb to the extra electrochemical activity developed near the base of 50 the rib with the -result that they are eaten through and loosen ed from the main body of-the-plato in many cases. It seems also that with the deep parallel-wall grooves the diffusion of the acid which allows a more even action decreases, more or less in proportion to the depth of the groove. The rib, therefore, is weak Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed February 5. 1906. Serial No. 299.610.

Patented Oct. 29, 1907.

from an electrochemical standpoint, as well as weak from a mechanical standpoint. While it is not in-v tended here to suggest that the above noted defects cially in the resulting openness of the grooves and consequent better distribution of the electrolyte throughout their depth and equalizing of the action of the current on the ribs; inthe thickening of the bases of the ribs and consequent strengthening of them mechanically while affording a greater mass of material at the point where uneven action occurs, and the compacting of the lead at the base (if the rib, just .where under the old method, the action of the disks or cutters apparently resulted in a weakening of the molecular structure of the rib.

The form of disk or knife shown in my second above-mentioned co-pending application carries the improvement further by providing beyond the beveled surfaces of the disk or knife flat sided surfaces forming a channel between the disks into which the 85.. apex of the lead rib may flow, to a greater or less extent according to the thickness of blank employed and the depth of cut dcsired thus forming higher ribs if need be, and larger capacity grooves by allowing the disks to feed deeper into the blank and preventing the partial destruction of the rib which would occur if it struck the base of the groove between the disks.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is an elevation to actual scale of part of a roll adapted to the for- I mation of my unmoved grid, only a few disks being shown in place. Figs. 2 and 3 are sectional elevations, to a greatly enlarged scale, showing the effect upon the blank of two opposed rolls of the type shown in Fig. 1, Fig. 2 showing the effect of completely embedding the disks in the blank to the depth of the taper, and Fig. 3 the effect when the operation is stopped short of that depth. Figs. 1, 5 and 6 are similar views, illustrating the preferred form of the invention, in which the disks are slightly separated (preferably by thinning them 102) and interposing washers), so that an expansion of the grid material into parallel-walled channels between the disks takes place, for providing greater capacityin the grid.

By way of illustration merely, the'ribs on the two sit es of the grid are, in all instances, shown exactly opposite each other.

seas rs provided a channel 5 into which any expansion of the rib due to accidental or intentional excess depth of cut [is the form of grid to which the invention relates and the general construction of the machine employed ior making it are well known; I have herein not shown eiiher the entire grid or the entire machine, but only 5 so much thereof as is necessary to the clear understandout of the main body of the blank, and expanded above of ribs or leaves, but leaving its original surface, a series intact and unworked the edges of the blank, and sometimes also, worked portions form a stiffening and conducting frame for the grid.

portions traversing the blank; which un- The general character of the'grid of my ipresent in- 1 vention is the same as that of the Richards patent abovetive material-thus avoiding the uneven and delereierred to, and a machine similar in its general construction to the ployed. But to form the grids of my present invention, I adopt disks of the' form shown in the drawings and which are more fully described in my aforesaid pending applications.

i l one therein described may be eintakes place.

In Fig. 6 is shown the result when the embedding of the tool into the lead blank is sufficient to cause the apex of the lead rib to pass slightly beyond the beveled face of the tool and into the channel 5. It is in any case not intended that there shall be any great flow of metal into the channel 5 but only suilicient to provide for necessary irregularities of action and slight modifications in capacity and thickness of blank. In any case the ribs or ridges are, in cross-section, of substantially conical or irusto-conical shape, they are of greatest thickness and strongest at the bottom, are compacted equally throughout by the crowding effect of the beveled disks or knives, instead of being loose-textured at the base where greatest strength is needed and they provide between them outwardly flaring grooves or channels for the electrolyte and formed or applied acterious electrochemical results already noted.- The preferred form shown in Fig. 6 has the further advantage of providing greater capacity while not destroying the beneficial effects of the irusto-conical form of the main body of the rib.

The grid forming roll is comprised of disks, knives or i flat-sided as 6. If no washers are placed between the disks or knives, so that the beveled edges form in cross-section a V, as shown in Fig. 1, the result of an almost complete and of a complete embedding of the disks or kn'ivesin the blank are shown respectively in Figs. 2 and 3. The intended method of working when the machine is of the form shown in Fig. 1, is exhibited in Fig. 3. It will be noticed that'it, by reason of too great penetration oi cut, due either to an effort to obtain greater capacity or to slight irregularities of the action of the machine, or of the form of the cutting disk, the apex of the lead leaf 0 rib ascend into the converging angle between the d isks, as shown in Fig. 2, it is apt to be. torn thereby, and in any event to be prevented from sufficient expansion to allow slight changes of depth-of cut and capacity. In the form, shown in Figs. 4, 5 and 6 therefore, designed to avoid this difficulty, the bevel ends at the point at where it meets the flat side of the disk, the angle between the two surfaces being rounded more or-less as may be desired, and the disks are separated from each other, for example, by the washers 4, There is thus 1, placed in series on a shaft 2 and fastened and I the size of the grid and the iltlllb to the depth of cut desired The result of embeddiin disks or knives of i 1 this shape in a lead blank 3 is shown in Figs. 2, 3, 5 and -Other means than those shown for separating the disks may be employed, the disks and washers are clamped upon the shaft in the usual manner, and in other respects the general construction of the machine may be of any usual or preferred construction, that shown and described in'the said Letters Patent of lichards being only instanced by way of example.

Having thus described the invention what is claimed as new and desired to be secured by Letters Patent is 2-' 1. A lead storage battery grid. having its main body or portion which is intended to become active or carry active material, formed. of a series of relatively high, thin and closely sct leaves or ribs of rolled or spun metal, compact and dense throughout, integral with the remainder or trnnie portion of the grid, said r-ihs being relatively thick at base. tapered sr'ihstantiitlly from base to apex, rnised at the apex above the surface of the surrounding frame portion oi the grid and having between them narrow and deep channels decreasing in width from substantially the sun face to the mid-thickness of the grid.

2. A lead storage battery grid, having its main body or portion which is intended to become active or carry active material, formed of :1 series of relatively high, thin and closely set lenvcs or ribs of rolled or spun metal, compact 

